Registrations of new full-electric vehicles have more than doubled in the first quarter of 2018, according to Motor Industry Association data.
Tesla, last year's full-electric market leader has strengthened its foothold in the growing segment, despite facing fresh competition from Hyundai and Volkswagen.
The Tesla Model S sedan (44 units) is New Zealand's best selling full-electric vehicle through the first three months of the year, with the company's Model X SUV (37 units) not far behind.
Volkswagen's first full-electric model to land in New Zealand, the e-Golf (34 units), has overtaken last year's best selling Hyundai Ioniq (27 units) in total registrations thus far.
In total, 162 brand new full-electric cars were registered in New Zealand in Q1, 2018, a 225 per cent increase over the same period last year.
Tesla is still the market leader with a 50 per cent share, followed by Volkswagen (34 per cent) and Hyundai (34 per cent).
The start of 2018 has also seen a shape increase in registrations of plug-in petrol hybrids with a total of 138 units, up 176 per cent year-on-year.
The Mitsubishi Outlander (58 units) is still New Zealand's favourite plug-in hybrid, followed by the newly released Kia Niro (19 units) and Mini Countryman (14 units).
Petrol hybrid registrations (583 units) are are also up 125 per cent over the same period last year (464 units).
For the first time ever, the Toyota Corolla (196 units) has been registerd in higher numbers than the Camry (103 units) through the first quarter, followed by the Kia Niro (83 units).
While EV registrations are down overall, electric charging systems provider Chargemaster says the drop off can be attributed a stink bug infestations that interrupted imports of used cars out of Asia.
"The numbers highlight that the most popular used EV, Nissan Leaf was significantly down on previous quarters with some ascribing this to recent issues with the 30kw Leaf."
There are now over 7000 full-electric cars registered on New Zealand roads.
The Government aims to have 64,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2021.